History as a Central Focus of South African Fiction: A Study of Peter Abrahams’ Mine Boy

Abstract

Among the popular South African novelists whose novels are read with every seriousness is Peter Abraham. His novels not only entertain but also profusely enlighten. Basically, literature writers are inspired by what happens around them so they mirror societal facts in their works and subtly craft them in a way that such works entertains the reader. However, if the sole aim of the writer in a particular work of art is to entertain, then such work should not be taken very seriously. Works of imagination are usually the author’s weapon to fight certain abnormalities in a given society. This is why it is believed that fiction is a mirror through which a society is seen. Peter Abrahams is one of those who believe that with fiction, certain abnormalities in a society can be addressed thus Mine Boy, albeit seen by some as a journalistic history of the South African society, it is a fiction, whose inspiration was drawn from what happens around the author. The researchers’ interest in this paper is basically to explore the novel and find out how adequately Abrahams has managed his facts in the writing of Mine Boy as to qualify the novel as fiction rather than history.